Ethical issues in treating pregnant women with severe mental illness.

Severe mental illness tends to occur and recur among women in the reproductive period. Both the disorders and the treatments may have effects on the mother and the foetus. The clinician hence is often in a dilemma when treating pregnant women with severe mental illness and is challenged with ethical issues related to decision making in this regard.

Spirituality and medicine: prevalence of spirituality-in-medicine instruction at osteopathic medical schools.

Context: Since the 1990s, there has been a heightened awareness of the value of teaching medical students about how aspects of spirituality and religion may affect patient care.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of spirituality-in-medicine instruction at colleges of osteopathic medicine (COMs) in the United States.

Methods: Prescreened subjects at 20 COMs were contacted by electronic mail and asked to complete a 25-item Web-based survey.

CAM education: promoting a salutogenic focus in health care.

Introduction: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) education has created a focus that not only brings awareness of various CAM therapies to conventional medical education but also highlights how these therapies can bring insight toward improved health care.

Methods: A survey of CAM educational leaders at institutions awarded grants for incorporating CAM education into medical curricula was performed to address how CAM education can improve health care delivery in America.

Results: Five (5) core themes were noted to be successful in achieving this goal.

Peak wall stress measurement in elective and acute abdominal aortic aneurysms.

Background: Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) rupture occurs when wall stress exceeds wall strength. Engineering principles suggest that aneurysm diameter is only one aspect of its geometry that influences wall stress. Finite element analysis considers the complete geometry and determines wall stresses throughout the structure.

Sequence analysis of VP7 gene of Indian bluetongue virus serotype-23 shows its close phylogenetic relationship to Australian and Chinese serotypes.

Bluetongue, an arthropod borne viral disease of wild and domestic ruminants, causes heavy economic losses throughout the world. In the present study, full-length VP7 gene of Indian bluetongue virus (BTV) serotype 23 was sequenced and compared with prototype strains of BTV reported from different countries. Nucleotide sequence analysis of VP7 gene revealed Indian BTV serotype 23 to have 1154 nucleotides with the deletion of two nucleotides at 3' non-coding region and a unique amino acid change 211S-N.

Somatoform disorders, somatization and abnormal illness behaviour.

Somatization and abnormal illness behaviour (AIB) often co-exist, and their inter-relationship appears to be complex. Patients with somatization are often observed to demonstrate abnormal illness behaviour. On the other hand, somatization has been explained in terms of abnormal illness behaviour.

HIV & psychiatric disorders.

HIV infection and psychiatric disorders have a complex relationship. Being HIV infected could result in psychiatric disorders as a psychological consequence of the infection or because of the effect of the HIV virus on the brain. Disorders may be as varied as depression, post-traumatic stress disorders, AIDS phobias, grief and the whole gamut of cognitive disorders.

Nitrate and fluoride levels in ground waters of Davanagere Taluka in Karnataka.

The quality of ground water supplies in Davanagere Taluk, situated in central part of Karnataka has been investigated with respect to pH, dissolved solids, chlorides, nitrates and fluorides. The levels of pH, dissolved solids and chlorides were found within the safe limits as prescribed by BIS, for more than 95% of the samples. Out of the 61 different borewell samples analysed, selected from different areas of Davanagere taluk, 26% of the samples are found to contain fluorides less than 0.

Musculoskeletal disorders: does the osteopathic medical profession demonstrate its unique and distinctive characteristics?

The authors used the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 1999 Summary to compare the practice patterns of osteopathic and allopathic physicians in the management of musculoskeletal disorders in family practice settings. Patient and physician characteristics, diagnostic test ordering patterns, treatments, and amount of time spent with patients during visits were compared. Patients who visited osteopathic physicians were more likely to be middle-aged and referred, with injury-related visits that were self-paid.

Differential detection of Newcastle disease virus strains by degenerate primers based RT-PCR.

Degenerate primers based RT-PCR (previously described by [Avian Dis 26 (1997) 837]) has been used for the detection and differentiation of Newcastle disease (ND) viruses. Two sets of primers (A+B and A+C), with common forward primer and distinct reverse degenerate primers, designed from fusion protein gene encoding for cleavage site, could differentiate virulent and avirulent Newcastle disease viruses (NDV). Both sets of primers amplified "F" gene sequence of virulent (velogenic and mesogenic) viruses, whereas in avirulent strains, amplification was only with primer set A+C.

Characterization of an Indian bluetongue virus isolate by RT-PCR and restriction enzyme analysis of the VP-7 gene sequence.

The reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was standardized to amplify the VP-7 gene sequences of an Indian isolate of bluetongue virus serotype 23. Using two different sets of primers, a sequence of 1156 bp comprising the complete coding sequence of the VP-7 gene and its 770 bp internal sequence were amplified. The sensitivity of RT-PCR, using these two sets of primers individually was 40 pg and 4 pg, with the external and internal primers, respectively, whereas the nested PCR was 100-fold more sensitive than the single PCR with the external primers.

Pressure-jump studies of the folding/unfolding of trp repressor.

The dimeric protein, trp apo-repressor of Escherichia coli has been subjected to high hydrostatic pressure under a variety of conditions, and the effects have been monitored by fluorescence spectroscopic and infra-red absorption techniques. Under conditions of micromolar protein concentration and low, non-denaturing concentrations of guanidinium hydrochloride (GuHCl), tryptophan and 8-anilino-1-naphthalene sulfonate (ANS) fluorescence detected high pressure profiles demonstrate that pressures below 3 kbar result in dissociation of the dimer to a monomeric species that presents no hydrophobic binding sites for ANS. The FTIR-detected high pressure profile obtained under significantly different solution conditions (30 mM trp repressor in absence of denaturant) exhibits a much smaller pressure dependence than the fluorescence detected profiles.

Application of obstetric ultrasound to determine the most suitable parameters for the aging of formalin-fixed human fetuses using manual measurements.

The aim of this study was to find the most suitable manual measurements to estimate the age of preserved fetuses. A new technique was used to make successful ultrasonic measurements on 86 out of 100 preserved fetuses under conditions simulating the intrauterine environment. The ultrasonographic images of the preserved specimens were very similar to those of live fetuses.

Review of eye plaque dosimetry based on AAPM Task Group 43 recommendations. American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

Purpose: AAPM Task Group 43 recently revised the dosimetry recommendations for 125I seeds. We reviewed these guidelines and studied the effects of the recommendations on the prescription absorbed dose for patients who have undergone eye plaque therapy in our clinic.

Methods And Materials: 95 consecutive patients were chosen for this study.

Chloride transport in primary cultures of rabbit colonocytes at different stages of development.

Background & Aims: Ontogeny of colonic Cl- transport and its regulation has been characterized inadequately. The aim of this report was to study developmental changes in Cl- transport in primary cultures of rabbit distal colonocytes.

Methods: Colonocytes from newborn (7-9 days old), weanling (25-28 days old), and adult (6 months old) rabbits were cultured for 24 hours on a collagen IV matrix, and Cl- transport was measured using the fluoroprobe 6-methoxyquinolyl acetoethyl ester.

Carcinoma of the rectum. Possible cellular predictors of metastatic potential and response to radiation therapy.

Background: Preoperative radiation therapy can markedly improve local control of rectal carcinoma. However, some tumors do not respond well to moderate doses of preoperative radiation and would be better served by more aggressive preoperative treatment (e.g.

Altered growth and attachment of rabbit crypt colonocytes isolated from different developmental stages.

The rabbit colon was used to establish an in vitro model for examining development-related cellular changes in colonocyte function. Colonic epithelia from newborn, weanling, and adult animals were separated from the muscle and subjected to enzymatic digestion. A mixture of 0.

Killing of Histoplasma capsulatum by macrophage colony stimulating factor-treated human monocyte-derived macrophages: role for reactive oxygen intermediates.

The interaction of human macrophages with the yeast-form of Histoplasma capsulatum was studied. The use of culture and a short-term assay period instead of microscopy gave direct evidence of the fungicidal activity of human macrophages. The present study reports the novel finding of fungicidal activity of macrophages derived from monocytes in the presence of macrophage colony-stimulating-factor (MCSF).

Diagnosis of intestinal microsporidiosis by examination of stool and duodenal aspirate with Weber's modified trichrome and Uvitex 2B strains.

Severe, chronic diarrhea is a frequent complication of human immunodeficiency virus disease, and intestinal microsporidiosis is being recognized with increasing frequency in patients with AIDS. Noninvasive, cost-effective techniques are needed to optimize its diagnosis. Weber's modified trichrome stain (MTS) and the fluorochrome Uvitex 2B stain were used to detect microsporidial spores in smears of stool and duodenal aspirate (DA) samples received from human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients for examination for ova and parasites.